Introduction
It was awhile ago I took a look at a harddrive and I was in need for one for my HTPC so I decided to order a Maxtor Diamondmax 10 200GB with a 16mb buffer, as it seemed to be perfect for my HTPC. I am curious though how the buffer works’ and how the drive will perform vs a normal 8mb buffer drive and vs SATA so that’s the main thing we will be looking at tonight in the review. I have heard good things about these drives and this is supposed to be fairly quiet so that is something we will check out also.
About Maxtor:
Vision: Storage is a key enabler for many of the next generation technology products. Maxtor is a storage industry leader.
Mission: To strengthen and grow our leadership position by providing storage products across a range of market segments, including desktop computers, consumer electronics, midline and nearline storage systems, and high-performance servers.
Profile: Maxtor Corporation supplies innovative, leading-edge storage solutions to the world. Products include 3.5-inch ATA and SCSI hard disk drives; Maxtor OneTouch� external hard drives and Maxtor Shared Storage� solution; Maxtor QuickView� consumer electronics drives and interface and video editing accessories.Founded in 1982, Maxtor is traded on the NYSE under the MXO symbol. Specifications:
Choice of parallel or serial interfaces
� Latest Serial ATA interface with 3.0Gb/s data transfer speed
� Native command queuing
� Ultra ATA data transfer speeds up to 133MB/sec
� 8MB cache buffer for 80GB, 120GB, 160GB and 200GB drive
� 16MB cache buffer for 250GB and 300GB drive
� Fluid dynamic bearing motor for quiet operation
� Improved reliability with:
�Shock Protection System�
�Data Protection System�
� RoHS compliant version available
The product:
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I got the cheaper version without the box and software. Not much to say about the drive itself it’s a standard harddrive and on the top you have a sticker with information about the drive and how to jumper it. Remember to choose slave or master so your computer will find it. If you are adding this as a second disk it is probably a slave disk for you but if it’s your new main disk it’s the master you are to jumper.
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Just a quick installation instruction, from the left of the drive the big IDE cable is connected in the left connector and on the far right you connect the molex cable from the power supply. Between those is the jumper you have to set for master,slave, or cable select.
Testing:
AMD 64+ 3200+ S939 Winchester
DFI Lanparty UT nF4 Ultra
Crucial Ballistix Tracer PC4000
Sapphire X3000
Maxtor 80 GB 7200 rpm harddrive
Maxtor 200 GB 7200 rpm 16mb harddrive
Testing was done with HDspeed, Passmark and Sisoft Sandra 2005 Sp3
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